eth.getBalance() returns nonsensical value when called without parameters

[tgerring]

According to https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/JavaScript-API#web3ethgetbalance, eth.getBalance() requires the account as first parameter, however, when calling without any, it returns a very large number that doesn't appear to correspond to the actual account balances.

> checkAllBalances();
  eth.accounts[0]: 0xd1ade25ccd3d550a7eb532ac759cac7be09c2719   balance: 63.11848 ether
  eth.accounts[1]: 0xda65665fc30803cb1fb7e6d86691e20b1826dee0   balance: 0 ether
  eth.accounts[2]: 0xe470b1a7d2c9c5c6f03bbaa8fa20db6d404a0c32   balance: 1 ether
  eth.accounts[3]: 0xf4dd5c3794f1fd0cdc0327a83aa472609c806e99   balance: 6 ether
> web3.fromWei(eth.getBalance(eth.accounts[0]), "ether")
'63.11848'
> web3.fromWei(eth.getBalance(), "ether")
'1000000000000000000000441.3628860000000142'

I would expect to return an error indicating that the first parameter is required when missing or make it print total of all account balances.

[frozeman]

Thanks for submitting this. I just checked and when you call eth.getBalance() we are sending:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_getBalance","params":["0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000","latest"],"id":5148}

Interestingly GO is returning:

{
    "id": 5148,
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "result": "0x0b7abc627050305adf2c90fdda604f3a9908"
}

So i guess the problem here is on the go side, which should return 0x0

[tgerring]

Even if there is an issue with the underlying implementation, it's not good that web3.js assumes to fill in "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000" when a required parameter is missing

In the scenario you described, the user would execute an invalid eth.getBalance() and receive an invalid return value of 0, when really there should be an error to let them know the parameter was missing.

[obscuren]

So i guess the problem here is on the go side, which should return 0x0

Nope

Fun fact, someone send that amount to the zero'd address :-)

It's correct that a nothing address defaults to the zero'd address (on the go implementation). This doesn't mean that web3.js should allow it.

[frozeman]

so its not a bug?
But we probably shouldn't default to '0x000..' thats right, w'll fix it.
@debris any comment on that? Is there a reason why our toAddress function can't return null or undefined if it got undefined?

[obscuren]

No, not a bug. See ethereum/go-ethereum#919

[tgerring]

@frozeman What are your thoughts on having this method return the balance of all accounts when called without a parameter? It would be nice to have a slightly easier way than defining the checkAllBalances() function each time you start geth

[alexvandesande]

@tgerring that's not a bad idea actually. I agree that undefined should be treated differently than 0, but this would even be better..

[obscuren]

@frozeman @tgerring @alexvandesande that's something that we can easily add to geth. We already have startup js files. Feel free to send a PR on go-ethereum that includes this method.

[frozeman]

I agree, get all balances etc, are not part of the API, this a simple scripts one can write, which we can add to the geth console